As your calendar should've notified you, we’re a week into December—which means the new crop of magazines hit the newsstands a little bit ago. But in case they got lost in the holiday jumble, we’ve flipped through them all to give you the lowdown on everything you need to know about this month in menswear journalism.

The December issues were full of reflection on a year that seemed more dismal to some (Esquire) than others (GQ) and mostly about watching TV to Details. And, for the first two, possibly about ushering in a new era of the casually printed nipple. (Here’s to looking forward to 2013 on that one.)

For those of you lucky enough to be in New York City this weekend, we have some really, really ridiculously good-looking news.

Our comrades-in-style over at UrbanDaddy are hosting a two-day, whiskey-infused extravaganza of dapperness called the Vault on Saturday and Sunday in SoHo (70 Wooster St, to be exact).

In said Vault will be untold wonders of menswear from the likes of Michael Bastian, Slowear, Oliver Spencer, Richard James, Barker Black and more, at unheard-of prices—camelhair chesterfields from MB, gray hopsack suits from Richard James Savile Row, the coveted Incotex pants line from Slowear...

As with any good celebration of handsomeness, the scotch will be flowing freely. And if you happen to be in the giving mood, they’ve also set up complimentary on-site gift wrapping. (Just remember to act surprised when you open them later.)

Sock It to Me: Valet’s guide to the perfect Christmas stocking. Naturally, it includes chocolate. [Valet]

Pink Moon: If you’re up at 9am tomorrow, you may notice the moon taking on an ominously red hue, thanks to the lunar eclipse. If you’re not, we’re sure there will be lots of pictures. [The Atlantic Wire]

Chicken and Waffles, Together at Last: A gentleman’s guide to making chicken-and-waffle popovers, which sounds like the greatest food ever. [The Awl]

Actually, the Perfect Gift: Ladies and gentlemen, a 4.5-liter bottle of Johnnie Walker Black. How do you even pour it? [Fantastic Man]

Father’s Day is just a couple weeks off, and it’s time to get into gifting mode. We’ve got a few more adventurous suggestions in the pipeline—no, not ties—but we thought we’d kick things off with an old standard: scotch.

This site won’t sell you any, but it’ll help you find a store and give you the info to pin down the bottle you’re after, which should get you halfway there. (Try here if you can’t find a local shop.) The trick is finding a bottle that’ll give the old man something he hasn’t tasted before. And the older the better.

Last year we told you about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire a world-class collection of rare Scotch whiskies at a landmark Christie's sale. Now you can get the whole shebang in one bottle. It's no ordinary fifth of hooch however; called The Last Drop, it carries a $2,000 pricetag and there's an extremely limited supply.

70 different malt whiskies and 12 different grain whiskies, most from distilleries no longer extant and all at least 48 years old (i.e. pre-1960), go into this uber-blend bottled at cask strength. Of course with something like this you may want to lock it away in the cellar for some extremely important occasion, so the makers have thoughtfully included a miniature bottle gratis so you can sample the goods without breaking into the principal. And if you can stop there you're a better man than I.

Compass Box, the no-nonsense artisanal Brit whiskymaker whose ambrosial offerings we first told you about last year, has just come out with a new bottling of its limited release Hedonism Scotch in time for a certain Hallmark holiday.

Hedonism is a blend of rare old Scotch grain whisky -- traditionally low grade, unmatured stuff made from wheat or corn added to malt whisky to make the major brands of blended Scotch. However, when properly aged in oak, Scotch grain whisky can achieve its own delectable character, albeit of a much lighter, honeyish, toffee-like variety; a before-dinner Scotch if you will.

Compass Box bottles the stuff when it can find enough mature grain whisky—20 years old on average—in good oak casks. No easy task, but we're certainly glad they bothered.

Would you pay $30,000 for a bottle of Scotch? The folks at Christie's are hoping somebody will at what is certainly an auspicious occasion: the first auction of rare spirits in New York since Prohibition began in 1920, taking place this Saturday at their Rockefeller Center HQ. Read more »

We know you've been meaning to acquire all sorts of esoteric Scotch knowledge so no one laughs anymore when you try to pronounce “Islay.” There's a way to look like you know your way around the Inner Hebrides however without losing sleep over it. Compass Box, a no-nonsense artisanal Brit whiskymaker, bypasses the mumbo jumbo in favor of a simple statement expressing the character of the spirit: take our favorite from their core range, the smoked-out Peat Monster.